Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) Announces Stock Buyback Program

Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC) announced that its board has authorized a share buyback program on Wednesday, July 23rd, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $40.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the financial services provider to purchase up to 11.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often a sign that the company's board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

BAC has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Bank of America from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a research report on Thursday, May 22nd. Royal Bank Of Canada set a $53.00 price objective on shares of Bank of America and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Monday, June 30th. HSBC lowered shares of Bank of America from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $47.00 to $51.00 in a research report on Monday, July 7th. Cowen started coverage on shares of Bank of America in a research report on Wednesday, May 14th. They issued a "buy" rating on the stock. Finally, Evercore ISI reduced their target price on shares of Bank of America from $51.00 to $48.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, seventeen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Bank of America has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $50.03.

Bank of America Stock Up 0.5%

BAC traded up $0.25 during trading on Thursday, hitting $48.39. The stock had a trading volume of 42,918,213 shares, compared to its average volume of 43,503,523. The company has a market capitalization of $364.43 billion, a PE ratio of 14.15, a PEG ratio of 1.86 and a beta of 1.30. Bank of America has a twelve month low of $33.06 and a twelve month high of $49.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.14, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.80. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $45.75 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $43.72.

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 16th. The financial services provider reported $0.89 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.86 by $0.03. The company had revenue of ($22,273.00) million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $26.79 billion. Bank of America had a net margin of 14.81% and a return on equity of 10.25%. Bank of America's revenue was up 4.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.83 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that Bank of America will post 3.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Bank of America Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 26th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 5th will be paid a dividend of $0.28 per share. This is an increase from Bank of America's previous quarterly dividend of $0.26. This represents a $1.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.31%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 5th. Bank of America's payout ratio is presently 30.41%.

About Bank of America

Bank of America Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides banking and financial products and services for individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses, institutional investors, large corporations, and governments worldwide. It operates in four segments: Consumer Banking, Global Wealth & Investment Management (GWIM), Global Banking, and Global Markets.